Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Mustafa Jabbar said yesterday the government in principle decided to connect Bangladesh with the third submarine cable to meet the rapidly growing data consumption in the country.
The minister made the remarks while addressing a non-commercial trial launch of Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) technology by Robi Axiata Limited at its headquarter in Gulshan, Dhaka on Wednesday.
Mustafa Jabbar, speaking as the chief guest, said that a new consortium has started in moving to lay another undersea cable (SEA-ME-WE-6) within a short time from Singapore and Bangladesh.
He said: “Currently the country’s total bandwidth consumption is about 950Gbps which was about 550Gbps only one year ago and the growth rate is rising. More and more new technological advancement is hitting the market and that also enhances the data consumption of the country.”
Mustafa Jabbar also said, considering the rapid growth in data consumption by the country, the existing capacity of the two submarine cables along with other service providers would be exhausted by 2020.
He said everyone has to come under connectivity. All operators will have to take 4G services to remote villages.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Md Jahurul Haque was present as special guest.
Mustafa Jabbar made a voice call to Md Jahurul Haque over Robi’s 4.5G network as a trial run of the VoLTE service.
BTRC commissioners (Engineering & Operations) Md Rezaul Quader and (Spectrum Management) Md Aminul Hasan, and Robi’s Managing Director and CEO Mahtab Uddin Ahmed were also present on the occasion.
